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Essay on fraternities and sororities by Ohio University Dean of Women Irma Voigt

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A situation has maintained at Ohio University over the
years which is quite different from that found on ["a good" crossed out]
many campuses where the fraternity system exists. In the
men's area the membership in the greek letter social organizations
has gone as high as 40 per cent. Among the women
the percentage of sorority women has never exceeded 32 per
cent. It has over long periods of time, practically ever
since there ^were enough organizations on the campus to maintain
an Inter-fraternity and Pan-hellenic Council, the percentage
has ranged between 22 and 33 per cent for the women,
and for the men practically the same with the upper limit
somewhat higher. The thing that has been somewhat remarkable
on this campus is that the number of "organized students"
has never been in the majority-- has never even come near
being half.
This has saved this campus from a situation of dominance
by the organized groups which has been so frequently found
in other institutions. It has, also, made for a friendly
feeling among the organized groups. It is especially true
aillong the women's groups that the greatest friendliness and
inter-change of courtesies prevails among these groups with
the exception of the short period of time when rushing is
at its peak. While it has been noticably true that for the
most part sorority women date fraternity men and vice versa,
it is by no means a hard and fast rule.
During the years when there were practically no university
controlled dormitories for men, the fraternity houses served

Irma Voigt's unpublished works are protected by US copyright law for 70 years following her death. She had no known heirs. The works will pass into the Public Domain (no longer protected by copyright) on May 9, 2023. Uses of this material for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research are permitted under the fair use doctrine in the United States. For more information on US copyright and "orphan" works, please visit the below statement from Rightsstatements.org. Identify the institutional repository, collection, and creator when citing these materials. Contact Head of Arts and Archives Sara Harrington at harrings@ohio.edu for permission to publish and purchase image files of higher resolution and quality.

C
378.771
037ev
v.1
A situation has maintained at Ohio University over the
years which is quite different from that found on ["a good" crossed out]
many campuses where the fraternity system exists. In the
men's area the membership in the greek letter social organizations
has gone as high as 40 per cent. Among the women
the percentage of sorority women has never exceeded 32 per
cent. It has over long periods of time, practically ever
since there ^were enough organizations on the campus to maintain
an Inter-fraternity and Pan-hellenic Council, the percentage
has ranged between 22 and 33 per cent for the women,
and for the men practically the same with the upper limit
somewhat higher. The thing that has been somewhat remarkable
on this campus is that the number of "organized students"
has never been in the majority-- has never even come near
being half.
This has saved this campus from a situation of dominance
by the organized groups which has been so frequently found
in other institutions. It has, also, made for a friendly
feeling among the organized groups. It is especially true
aillong the women's groups that the greatest friendliness and
inter-change of courtesies prevails among these groups with
the exception of the short period of time when rushing is
at its peak. While it has been noticably true that for the
most part sorority women date fraternity men and vice versa,
it is by no means a hard and fast rule.
During the years when there were practically no university
controlled dormitories for men, the fraternity houses served